


Cowboys and Angels

by hermajestythekaylor



Series: long story short- a sapphic short story collection [1]
Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Inspired by Music, Original Fiction, Sapphic, Song: Our Song (Taylor Swift)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29038773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermajestythekaylor/pseuds/hermajestythekaylor
Summary: A short story inspired by 'Our Song', the first in a collection of sapphic short stories inspired by Taylor's songs.
Series: long story short- a sapphic short story collection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2130339
Kudos: 4





	Cowboys and Angels

The key thing I remember about Adeline’s house was the tired CD player that slumped in the corner of the small kitchen. It almost seemed incongruous against the peeling teal wallpaper and hideous tiled floor, a bizarre testament to modernity against an aging background. I could try and recall a time in which it did not buzz with the single CD it knew, undercut by worn-out whirring but it would take up too much time. In the early days when I visited Addy, its presence was inescapable, constantly muffling mine and Addy’s whispers and soft giggles as it crept through the kitchen and up to her bedroom. 

There was only one song I ever heard that device play. Maybe they switched to Christmas songs in December, I would not know, I was out of the house by then. But for every time I visited my Addy, be it standing in her kitchen or sometimes sneaking through her bedroom window, I could hear ‘Cowboys and Angels’ on repeat. It was a favourite of Mister Ramon Abernathy and equally enjoyed by his wife, Delilah Abernathy. Whilst I was sat atop Addy’s green tartan duvet, either holding her or Lenny, her cat, the senior Abernathys were basking in the trickling droplets of the fountain of youth as they danced to the song that played the night they met.  
Whilst they were encased within the gleaming bubble of 1992, I was navigating the much murkier circle of my present. Every time I moved further in my relationship with Addy, I felt like I had achieved something in spite of our circumstances and my victory inspired me to run further, to push the boundaries as much as I could, only for a new conundrum to manifest, and for me to be unsure once more. We were long adjusted to the sneaking around, the secrecy within the first two months, had it perfected when we reached three. 

The first time I tried to climb through Addy’s window, I was certain we would be caught. I tumbled in headfirst, attempting and failing to put gymnastics lessons from nine years ago to good use. The clatter startled Lenny and crushed the chocolate I had bought for Addy, but she didn’t mind. She just helped me up, and then I allowed myself to find contentment in the rounded curves of sunset-like dark bronze skin swaddled in second-hand plaid.  


Addy always had something for me to thank me for the effort I put into sneaking in. A handful of daisies tied together with a gold string, almost invisible in colour. A book she found in the library she thought I would enjoy. I told her that she did not have to- especially given that staying secret was just as important to me as it was to her- but she insisted. She may have rivalled a church mouse in terms of shyness when I first met her- and when the rest of the world did too- but I knew that the fire in her eyes most mistook for mere embers was actually a blaze, and one that not even I could put out. 

We would sit in silence and would read together, or she would paint my nails before I had a pageant. It was quiet and mundane, and it was far more comforting to me than my own quarters. Adeline’s sheets were sewn together by her mother. Mine were from the Pottery Barn. There was a gaudy chandelier with fake diamonds in the centre of my room. Addy’s main source of light came from ribbons of moonlight streaming into the room and her grandmother’s lamp. Almost always, no matter the circumstances, ‘Cowboys and Angels’ would filter through the thin hardwood floor. 

The times we were comfortable enough to leave the space, Addy would tell her parents that she was out to buy more hen feed or soil for the vegetable patch. She would go outside and wait below the window for me as I climbed back out the window and walked with her to her pickup truck. Addy’s baby, essentially. Despite being a faded red colour, Addy had deemed her “old but gold” and thus had naturally named her ‘Goldie’. She always had a penchant for taking worthless things nobody else would see the potential in and making them feel valued. In the early days, I joked that she liked the beat-up car more than she liked me. It was a bad joke for both of us. She was flustered and stammering as she promised me that was not true, and I was falsely giggling as I told her I said it in jest. That was only partially true, because if there was one dogma my mother had installed in me, it was that there was always someone better standing in the evergreen field. But I digress. 

Once again, I was sitting shotgun in ‘Goldie’, absentmindedly scouring the tinny radio for a good song as we playfully argued over where to have lunch when the familiar chorus struck me. ‘Cowboys and Angels’ seeped out of the radio, sinking into the depths of the space between Addy and me. Realistically, it shouldn’t have affected me, I knew that. I had heard it a million times before.  
Which was what made me realize that I had heard the story of the cowboy and the angel a million times before. It was always there. A cowboy and an angel. That was the story that was pushed, the pairing everyone aspired to be. Him with his commitment issues and her with a saint’s patience. I had never heard a different tale; it took me seventeen years to realize. I tried to. My jaw went slack, my eyes were as dark and vacant as the twilight sky they resembled as I delved into my mind in search of another tale. I couldn’t find one. 

Addy was always the shier one out of the two of us. I was a regular debutante in the making, a perfect statue of my mother’s molding in all but one way, talkative and chirpy with a routine giggle. That must have been why Addy’s eyebrows creased when I fell silent, and her plump lips pressed together when my laughter faded into the quiet hum of the radio. “Baby, is something wrong?” She asked me, briefly stroking my leg with a delicate umber hand. 

It took a moment for me to answer. Mostly because I was not completely sure what was wrong. My mother’s influence had begun to wane the moment Addy held my hand for the first time. At the peak of the twilight hour, when the photo of my mother and I at the church bake sale was glaring at me under the moonlight’s judgment, I felt a surge of guilt and despair, but time with Addy had diminished that into twinges. A light pain in my foot, a flash in my forehead. I was less sure of everything my mother had taught me, of everything in general. Every conflicting thought I’ve ever had about my attraction toward girls and what it meant to me, for me, was swept away with one kiss, only to be replaced by a new set of questions at every turn for Addy to answer until they were gone. 

“It’s nothing, Addy,” I said. “I was just thinking… is there a reason why we’re never heard? Not even just seen and not heard except we’re not seen either. Why is that?” 

“I don’t know, June,” Addy replied plainly. That was the one key difference between Addy in society and Addy in our world. Everyone else from our History teacher to Addy’s own parents knew her to be soft-spoken and shy, her head in a book and her lips glued together in a small smile. I knew better. In our world, she held all the secrets of the universe behind her unassuming grin. She was the one who illuminated all of the shadowy monsters in my view until they revealed themselves to be trees. I may have had the million-dollar smile, the sparkly dresses, and the gleaming jewelry but she was the one that shone with an understated light, a beautiful, dimmed glow. A light that bounced off the moonlight far more effervescent than the tiaras pinned to my shelf. 

“I don’t know either. I just don’t understand why there’s nothing for us out there. Like, not even a song or something,” I explained, trying to make sense of my own feelings. 

“Do we need one?” Her reply was plainer than I expected, and I didn’t know whether or not to be hurt by her nonchalance or to respect it. 

“I don’t know…” I replied, straightening out my dress. 

“What are you nervous about?” Addy asked as she watched me react to her simple statement. “You always play with your clothes when you’re anxious about something, so talk to me.”

I took a deep breath before I answered, one last chance to collect my thoughts, to run through their meaning and what had founded them before I burdened Addy with my confused thinking. “You know how your parents like to dance to ‘Cowboys And Angels’? All the time? It’s their song, it’s their everything, their fights, their flaws, their love, it’s an entire world built just for them, by them, all because of that song. We’re happy and content and doing all the right things, so where’s our song? I know we don’t need one, I just don’t understand why we don’t have one. It feels… weird.”

“Can I ask you something, Junebug? Do you like it at night when I quickly tap on your window and you tap on mine? Or when the phone rings and you tell your mama that it’s an agent or a boy on the football team but it’s me?”

“Yeah, I do,” I replied. “And I like it when your pickup truck revs too loudly and we freak out for a minute because your mama might hear us and then we start laughing. Or when we’re kissing under the bleachers and we’ve mastered the art of separating noises from animal sounds and people coming our way. But what’s your point?”

Addy chuckled for a moment as the pickup truck rolled to a stop in front of the diner. “Aren’t those sounds way better than some overrated George Michael song?”

“I suppose so,” I replied. I still was not sure yet. I cannot tell if I am today. I think I am, for the most part. I’ve made it work without a song. But I was briefly okay with that answer and if I was okay with it, Addy was too.

Addy got out of the car before I did and had this been one of our trips to a nearby field or the lake our town was named after, she would have opened the door for me and held my hand as I came out like I was the dreary Queen of England and then we would last half a second of seriousness before we started laughing. Instinctively, it took me a moment to get out of the car, purely because I was waiting for Addy to open the door and hold my hand. But then I saw the cars lining the road, the mothers walking the street with their children and I opened the door myself without her and my hand was left empty and waiting. 

Papa Ben’s Diner was the forefront for much of our dates. Addy’s sweet tooth combined with my love of all things vintage made it a beloved little venture for us. Addy always held the door open for me, looking nothing more than a polite Christian girl who tended to every need of her neighbours. It sounds cliché, the hallmark of every simple Southern diner in Tennessee, but the milkshakes they served there were ten-thousand calories worth of rebellious heaven. Nowadays, with all places I’ve seen, I would know that there were better, more indulgent desserts. There were other places with cheaper options, some with larger portions but none of them had Addy sat at the tired red booth, giggling at the elderly men flirting with the younger waitresses. 

I had barely touched my drink, but Addy already had a light smatter of strawberry milkshake adorning her rosewood lips. It was a strange flash of envy, a miniature blight on my mind as Addy waved at a Dachshund in the window. How she could sit there, content and tall, with no shrill voice in her mind telling her that her appearance was disorderly and unladylike. I was jealous and yet I couldn’t stop admiring her for it. I was not a wanting person, it was neither G-d nor my mother’s will for me to be a glutton, but in that moment, I desired nothing more than a taste of her bravery, her confidence, her mere yet sheer ability to just be.  
But then the sight of one of the other occupants that had been earlier, thick glasses frames eyeing us with what my unreasonable mind told me was suspicion and apprehension, and therefore I nervously reached for the jug of water next to her, a rudimentary explanation for my lapse. 

“Are you okay?” Addy asked me, unaware as always of the world’s glare. 

“Fine,” was my abrupt reply. I was not and she privately knew it. It was a bald-faced lie, and my cheeks were engulfed in flames the moment the word staggered out of my mouth. I was just thankful I did not say “I’m” before it. That would have felt like an unforgivable transgression.

Addy tilted her head, which provided me with both comfort and a rising disappointment. She knew I was not being truthful but at the very least, her round sable eyes were no longer boring into mine. For all my life, the most staring my heavy-lidded eyes had done had been into a mirror my mother pushed me in front of, a small scope of the manifestations of her wishes silently pleading with me in the reflection when she did so. Therefore, I was somewhat unadjusted to Addy’s many gazes that delved into much further recesses than my lip gloss or my grandmother’s pearls. One look told her that I meant “no” when I said “yes” or that I did want some of her fries when I told her I was full. If she had seen my eyes for a second longer, she would have uncovered the truth.

I wish I could say that I knew what would have happened if I had kissed Addy. I wish even more that I could say I regret not doing so. It would have been a fairy tale moment, the one they describe in ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and all the other books my mother read me in my youth back when she was searching for a profitable interest of mine. But in every story, there lived an evil mother and just as in the stories, mine was one that could only be vanquished by a handsome prince. But there was no prince to be found and thus no fairy tale adventure to be had. 

So, Addy turned her attention back to the table and I pretended that the idea of changing the entire trajectory of our relationship, our life, our world, was not running amok in my mind. I quickly moved onto amicable, light conversation between us, nothing that would look suspicious to outside ears, nothing that would convince her any more of my confusion, but instead something that would make her smile. 

I regretted it that night when I laid my head to rest, thinking of a smiling Addy and how I would have loved to have kissed her. It would have been far less timid than our first kiss, hasty and unsure behind a tent at the county fair five months ago. This time, I knew what to expect and more importantly, I knew exactly what I wanted. But the sorrow was soon forced out of my mind as it preoccupied itself with a far more grievous thought. Tomorrow. 

Most of my classmates dreaded exam day. Report day. The last day of summer. Addy’s least favourite day was the first day of spring break because it signalled a yearly vacation to her Aunt Wendy’s vacuous beach house with her three screaming cousins, her Aunt Moira’s aggressive poodle and worst of all, Aunt Wendy. I, however, could handle exams and report cards and drawn-out vacations with stuffy relatives. My undoing was our local church’s beauty pageant that occurred once a year. Ten girls per category, including myself, lined up in front of the minister’s wife, the head of the PTA, and Eloise Valla, a former beauty queen. In lieu of the swimsuit contest, we had a talent competition after our formal gown line-up and we concluded the event with a speech panel, in which we all had to explain how we had spread G-d’s message and will throughout the community. My talent was ballet. The pirouettes and jetes were for my mother to get back at the ballet instructor that criticized the legs she had put me on two exercise regimes to tone. The small, sparkly smile and the wistful eyes were for the judges, an ephemeral hold on perfection on the stage. But the music- that was for me. 

Objectively speaking, the music wasn’t all that impressive. Miss Alfonzo, the church organist, waddled over to the piano below the stage and began to play whilst I danced. Most of my competitors chose a well-known classical piece to showcase how cultured and sophisticated they were. Some played ‘Für Elise’, others danced to ‘Swan Lake’, and ‘Time To Say Goodbye’ was a popular choice among advanced vocalists. Dilettantes, the lot of them. I seldom passed judgment on my competitors, that duty was reserved for anxious mothers and stoic judges. 

But my music was special. 

I selected all of my music. All other aspects of the pageant were controlled by my mother, but the music was the one thing I could choose. My mother was hesitant at first when I nervously stumbled over to her, sheet music in hand. I can’t remember what it was that brought me to the attic that day, spring cleaning, perhaps? But whilst I sorted through hatboxes stuffed with old, empty Christmas cards and pretentious letters from distant relatives, I found a tattered, torn sheet of music. A piano piece. Only the words ‘for W.D by S.M’ were on the top by the title ‘Summer Rain’. I wasn’t a pianist, but I did take violin lessons when I was younger, so I could read music. Not well enough for me to play it for my pageant talent but when I found ‘Summer Rain’, my eyes were locked onto every intricate detail from the hearts drawn in the corner to the soft dynamics of the music. I was entranced and it wasn’t until I began to dance to it that I realized why. 

I ransacked the rest of the attic, the local library, the music stores and interrogated the church choir to see if S.M had written any more music, but every turn brought me to a dead end. So, I reused the piece for every dance, and I didn’t care how often my mother complained that it was repetitive. I loved it and if I had to be a pageant queen until the first hair greyed, I would at the very least dance to the music I cared about. Alone. Without her. 

That particular year, however, was a dance for Adeline and myself and I found myself willingly sharing my song with her. She stood quietly between Missus Abernathy and another contestant’s grandmother- a vision in muddy plaid and overly beloved sneakers as she smiled at me. A secret trick every practiced pageant girl knows is that the audience bears just as much significance as the judging panel. If you make the audience fall in love with you, they cheer for you, they laugh when you want them to, they “ooh” and “aw” when you need them to. A perfect burden of popularity to place on the adjudicators and one of the best ways to do it was eye-contact. So, I used my ceaseless mother’s teachings to sneak glances at her face. She was gazing at me with the same wide eyes she had when she discovered a new word in a novel and looked it up in her dictionary or when we were driving along the backroads and found a new path. Wonderment. And when our eyes met, I didn’t care if I won the crown or not. One glance of Addy’s could beat out a thousand of my mother’s worst tirades. 

In the midst of our secret moment in that crowded room, where there was no other song to break our connection other than ‘Summer Rain’, I realized why I loved it so dearly. Why a crumpled piece of paper lost to history said more to me than any perfectly curated country song. ‘Summer Rain’ was gentle and quiet, barely audible in the room as I moved. It was soft, afraid to be loud, as if it was restrained by uncertainty of its future, its place in the world. It was barely noticeable and covert as opposed to how prominent ‘Cowboys and Angels’ was in my life and everyone else’s too. 

The applause I received at the end of my performance was louder than the song itself. Addy was one of the first to finish and the last to stop as I exited the stage. I wondered if she felt the same way about the song, if she connected to it the way I did. I doubt anyone else would care about the song as much as I did, but if anyone revered it like me, it would be Addy. She was enchanted. I ended up winning my division, and she smiled and clapped but regularly this time. It was formal and polite as opposed to when I had danced for her earlier, completely conventional. We had made it through. 

I narrowly dodged my mother on my way to the dressing room. I didn’t want to share this moment with anyone but the girl who saw me perform on that stage. Addy was standing in a corner, holding out a water for me now that I didn’t have to worry about my lip gloss, a small smile on her face. As excited as I was to see her, my hands were trembling with every step I took closer to her. All the other girls were either with their mothers or their boyfriends, revelling in the certification of their ephemeral beauty or defiling their painted-on attempts at assimilation. Would they think it suspicious that I, Our Teen Lady of Faith, had no beau of my own? I could tell it irked my mother, however privately so, knowing that all of the other girls had a special man specifically devoted to telling them they were beautiful, to praise all the work their parents had put into them and my mother had no one to attest to her skills as a mother. 

“You’re such a beautiful dancer,” was the first thing Addy said to me when I came over to her. Everyone else congratulated me on the crown I couldn’t care less about first, and then the dancing I adored second, but Addy knew exactly what to say. Again. 

“Thank you,” I murmured softly. “I’m glad you liked it.”

“Of course I did. That was a lovely piece of music you chose. I’m really proud of you and I want to celebrate with you tonight.”

“That sounds lovely and- I have to go,” I said to her quietly as I eyed my mother walking over to me. 

“I’ll see you later tonight,” Addy promised me. “Same time as always.”

“Addy, I’m not so sure I can sneak out to see you tonight, I-”

“You don’t have to. I’ll come to you, my parents are away for the night. I’ll park my car a little bit down the road by the old paddock and we can stargaze together. Bring a blanket.” 

Before I could even confirm my date with Addy, my mother was standing next to me, and the words died in my throat. “Come now, June,” she said to me, not even acknowledging Addy’s presence. “We have photos to do and then we’re leaving.” I didn’t say another word to Addy before I let my mother drag me away but the small smile that flickered in front of my eyes before she slipped out of the room promised me that she would be there. 

The pageant “photographer” was just a boy from my school. His name was James, and when he wasn’t taking pictures for the school newsletter, he was on the football field, making sure our team won. Your standard fare, good grades, nice physique, soft brown hair, straight as a line. But his eyes ruined it for me. Cold and grey. Some people have depth in their eyes- the key to their soul- that they cover with defences. I don’t think his eyes had soul; I think they were just shallow. “Hello, June,” he greeted with a lecherous grin. “Ms Davenport.”

“Good afternoon,” my mother greeted curtly. She was cold and haughty, as if merely allowing James to exist in her space was a form of charity. I was used to it by now, she always acted like this after I won. She acted like this when I lost too, except it was based on bitterness and resentment as opposed to pride.

“Hello, James,” I responded cautiously. Etiquette kept me from rolling my eyes as he leered at me. I offered a strained smile back, to my mother’s delight but it wasn’t because I found his attention flattering, it was because my head was filled with hilarious quips about his nasally voice and hideous green shirt. Some of the voices overlapping in my head sounded like Addy and that’s what gave way to a smirk that he mistook for a simper. 

“Do you two know each other?” My mother asked. 

“I’m in June’s grade,” he answered, speaking to my mother but still looking at me as the photoshoot began. “Little to the left, darling.” 

My tongue bled when I bit it to stop myself from reprimanding him but it still didn’t sting as much as my mother’s smile when he spoke to me like I was already his. I was Addy’s. But I begrudgingly acknowledged his request as I moved, stiff and uncomfortable. I was counting down the seconds until it ended, and I could be free of him, but the camera kept clicking and his smile only grew wider. Worse still, that wasn’t a school camera, that was his personal one and it felt as though I had been defiled. Even as I walked back to the car, his gaze was still stuck on me. 

James waved at me as mother and I headed back to the car, but I didn’t bother returning the gesture. At least I could put my rudeness down to not noticing him. He wasn’t really much to notice anyway. I buckled myself in, preparing for my mother’s usual tirade about how the victory just meant I had to work harder and how it was proof that she was right about everything, only for the conversation to take an unexpected turn. 

“Who was that girl you were talking to?” My mother asked me sharply. 

I was nowhere near as brisk in my response as I stammered through my lie. “Adeline Abernathy. She’s a classmate. Just a classmate.”

“The daughter of that little farmer and his wife? Why was she at the pageant?”

“Just a fan of them, I guess,” I mumbled, looking out the window. Maybe if I saw a dress shop advertising a sale or a big commotion, I could pull her attention toward it and away from Addy. 

“She only seemed interested in you,” my mother said curtly and at any other time confirmation that in a room full of pretty girls, Addy only had eyes for me would have done wonders for my self-esteem but not when my mother sounded so accusatory when she spat it out. 

That comment I had a harder time rebutting. I was taken aback. I was careful around my mother, so careful. If Melissa Etheridge or Dusty Springfield came on the radio, I turned it off. If I had to shop for undergarments, I would not so much as glance at the surrounding advertisements lest it seem that my thoughts were impure. “We’re friends. She’s friends with some of the other pageant girls. That’s why she was there. Maybe she was thinking of signing up for next time.” 

“She does not look like a pageant girl,” my mother scoffed, her grip on the wheel tightening as she did so. It wasn’t in the cute way that Addy did it, where her face was screwed up in concentration, it was just her exercising control over another thing until she had drained all energy from it. 

If my mother had any more questions about Addy, she didn’t voice them. The rest of her comments spilled out in whispers, vile sentiments that a church-going woman about town could never voice in front of another human being. I wasn’t listening to whatever was being said anyway, my mind was still distracted by the venom that seeped out of my mother’s voice when she talked about my relationship with Addy. Either I was paranoid, or she was distrustful. Suspicious. I couldn’t have that. But I didn’t know what to do. One option was to call it off with Addy, go on a break until the smoke cleared. That wasn’t an option, not if I wanted any semblance of normalcy and comfort in my life. My mother got annoyed with me as we pulled up to the house for not listening to her in the car, but that was secondary to me as our earlier conversation burned into my mind, searing and painful until hot tears pricked at my eyes.

In what was either an unforgiving act of G-d’s wrath or His kindest example of mercy, salvation came at half-past six in the evening when my mother barged into my room with a Cheshire grin and told me that I had missed a call from James Graves. I knew exactly why he was calling as I saw my reflection in the mirror on my way down to the kitchen, my hair still styled and my makeup still faintly on my face. My mother gave me a confused look, as if she had been expecting me to take his call in my bedroom but I made no sound as I walked past her. That was mine and Addy’s space and I refused to let him in.

I looked up James’ family in the white pages and reluctantly dialled the listed number. I was hoping that the number would have expired and that they had moved houses or changed numbers but of course my mother needed the most up-to-date details of everyone in town, either for gossip or to brag about me. Sadly, someone answered. 

“You’ve called the Grymes residence; this is Alice speaking. How may I assist you?”

His housekeeper, I assumed. That would go over even better with my mother, his family must have a little money to their name. “Good evening. This is June Davenport calling. Is James available?” I tried to keep my tone bubbly and flirtatious so there would be no denying my attraction to him, should my mother ask more questions, but every lilt of my voice felt like adultery. 

“Yes, he is. I’ll tell him he has a lady on the line for him,” Alice said with a chuckle and her humorous tone told me that this was not a rare occurrence for him. The phone went silent for a minute and that was my last chance to pray that this question was about homework or that he had called the wrong number. 

“June,” he exclaimed loudly. “I was waiting for ya.” 

“Hi, James. I…” I trailed off. I had no experience with this. The most probably cause for my struggle was guilt. Fear. I didn’t want to do this to Addy and I especially didn’t want to do this to myself, and it showed. But I had to. If Addy wanted me as much as I wanted Addy, she would have to learn to temporarily settle for sharing my body. “I’m returning your call.”

“Naturally. Would you like to go with me and see a movie?” 

“No, I have some plans for tonight,” I said before I could stop myself. I suppose I wasn’t as ready for this as I thought. “Dance class. Then homework.”

“Tomorrow?” James pressed again. I wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to take no for an answer before he became vicious. 

I stopped. No good reason to reject him now, not after I gave him the time of day. “Alright.” 

The moment after the phone call dropped felt spooky. Like I had been cleaved cleanly in two. Half of me was celebrating the fact that I was safe, that and Addy and I were safe. For now. That I could go on this date with Addy tonight without worrying about being found out. The other half was more muddled with dread and resentment and confusion. Was this necessary? Why did I have to go this far for Addy and I? Suddenly, I was nervously pacing the room again after Addy and I shared a look that lingered for too long and I didn’t understand what it meant. 

But the ticking of the clock reminded me of Addy, and what was to come. James meant that I could still see Addy, without fear. And every passing second took my concerns with it as the moon crept closer. James could have me in the sun, it was too hot, and it was hard to see, but the moon was just shiny and illuminating and that was my Addy. That was what I wanted, James was merely what I needed.  


That night as I waited for Addy, I played ‘Summer Rain’ again. I was certain it wouldn’t wake my mother. It didn’t, thankfully. There was no audience, not even Addy to watch me, but I danced anyway. My sundress twirled with my arms when I moved to fix my hair and my made-up eyes fluttered with the tune of the piano as the stars directed Addy to my house. Addy barely finished saying “good evening” before I pulled her into a kiss, soft and slow, because we had the time and the space to do so. 

“This is the song you danced to earlier today, right?” Addy asked me when I pulled away. “It’s almost as beautiful as you.” 

I blushed and leaned in closer to her, if only for a moment before I led her over to the window. “I’m sorry I don’t have something for you like you usually have for me,” I said shyly. “But I at least remembered a blanket.  
“Wait, no, damn it,” Addy cussed suddenly. “I had something for you, to celebrate your wins. Damn it, I left it in my room, can we stop there quickly?”

“I only won one crown tonight,” I reminded her. It didn’t hurt anymore. My mother was surely going to remind me once the shallow pride had worn off. 

“Not just that kind of win,” Addy said quietly as she connected our hands. “Here, it’ll only take a minute and we don’t have to stress about time because my parents aren’t around. Just wait in the kitchen for me.” 

Addy remained tight-lipped about the gift she had for me both on the walk to the car and whilst we were driving back to her house, not that I minded. Her hand didn’t leave mine the entire time, resting on my leg as we drove to her deserted home. In the dark, when the neighbors had drawn their curtains for the night, she could open the door for me, and we could hold hands walking up the driveway. 

“I have a surprise for you,” Addy told me as she went up the stairs. “So, maybe just wait in the kitchen, help yourself to the fridge for a second.”

There was one key difference in the kitchen as I went to pour a glass of water- and that was that I couldn’t hear ‘Cowboys and Angels’ playing in the corner. It was just Addy shuffling around upstairs, looking for whatever trinket she bought me. It was peaceful and quiet and fleeting, like summer rain. 

Then I realized it’s because it was raining.

“It’s started to rain,” Addy sighed as she came back down. “But we can still watch a movie or something here. Close your eyes.”

“Sounds good.”

I did as I was told, as usual, and I opened my eyes to see a little notebook outstretched for me to take. “This is a pretty cover,” I said as I admired the flowers and birds printed on it. Inside, there were little piano pieces scrawled on each page. “Did you write these pieces? Do you play the piano?”

“No, I don’t but I picked it up at a second-hand store a little while ago because I was going to use the remaining pages as a diary but after today, I think you’d make better use of it.”

There was no better response I could give than a kiss. It was brief and quick because it was one of the few times I didn’t have the words. They would come to me later, but for now, I wanted to focus on Addy and Addy alone. 

“You know, if you’re up for it, there’s a little craft market on the Broken Wagon Acreage tomorrow evening, just a quiet little do. Nothing weird about two friends enjoying a nice Sunday market together before they have to go back to school.”

“I… can’t,” I told her meekly. “I’m busy tomorrow.”

“Oh, my mistake, I thought you were free. Your mother has her book club in the afternoon.”

“I, um, I’m seeing someone tomorrow. He’s taking me to see a movie,” I mumbled quietly. I was afraid that the louder I said it, the more it would sink in my head. The volume had no effect on how Addy interpreted it, if the crease in her brow and the thinning of her lips was any indication. 

The rain got louder. 

The first time Addy and I had fought, it was over the most ridiculous argument. I was giggly and feeling invincible after climbing into Addy’s bedroom without fail, and that feeling was exacerbated after Addy and I kissed. Deeply. For once, I wasn’t restrained by my concerns about Addy’s parents overhearing us or my mother finding out about our discreet meetings. And that right there, was the issue. When climbing back down, Addy watching me with a smile only brief flashes of moonlight let me see, I was distracted by her grin and her giggles until I foolishly banged my foot against a window. Addy stopped smiling immediately and so did I. Her mother barged into the room, wondering what was causing the ruckus and Addy went pale, on the precipice of tears as she gave her mother an excuse in the form of a staggered response. I didn’t move. I was scared to. 

My carelessness had hurt Addy. When I called her the next day, she was distant and reserved with brief responses. Too polite and sweet to decline my calls and too sensitive and emotional to pretend nothing was wrong. I was always the opposite, perfectly practiced in the timeless art of suppression. Addy’s justifiable annoyance, though I didn’t see it as valid at the time, was foreign to me, and that had led to our first spat. I wish I had known back then when I was smarting, hurting over our quarrel that it meant nothing. But I had nobody to tell me that. If I had any idea of what to do, where to go, I would have made it up with her immediately. The time we spent distant and apart, I would have spent holding her, especially if I had an idea of the future. 

“You’re… what?” Addy asked me shakily. “With who?”

“James Graves. He’s the quarterback.”

“How quaint,” Addy sniffed. “When were you going to tell me? Cause it felt like, maybe you weren’t until I asked.” 

“Of course I was going to tell you,” I stammered. Was I? “I just didn’t want to ruin tonight.”

“Too late,” Addy grumbled under her breath. “Why?”

“My mother. She asked me about you, and I panicked, and I thought that if she saw me with someone, it would placate her.”

“June, I know what your mother is like. I know what my parents are like too. I know that this is important to you, and it’s important to me too but I don’t see why this is necessary. We haven’t done anything wrong, anything suspicious! She just asked a couple of questions. I think you’re overreacting here.” 

“You weren’t there,” I reminded her firmly. “You didn’t hear how accusatory she sounded when she asked me about you. Don’t tell me I’m overreacting to a situation you don’t know about, it’s not fair.” 

Why didn’t you tell me about it? Why didn’t you call me up before you spoke to him? I could have calmed you down, we could have worked it out together.” Addy didn’t sound angry. She just sounded wounded. 

“I panicked!” I argued back. “Like you did when I accidentally hit the window a couple of months ago! I didn’t know what to do! I don’t get why you aren’t more supportive of this when this means that we’re protected! That nobody will ask questions!”

Addy was silent for a moment as she gathered herself. I didn’t look her in the eye because I knew there would be tears there and she didn’t look me in the eye because she knew there wouldn’t be affection there like there was earlier today. “If you need to do this, I’m not going to stop you. But I just don’t think I have it in me to stand by as some other guy gets to do everything with you that I can’t. And you didn’t even talk to me about it first? You didn’t even plan on telling me until I asked you about it!”

“I need to do this. I thought you would understand,” I mumbled. It was meek and quiet, and didn’t even remotely capture my anger, my hurt. 

“I don’t understand. We’ve snuck around before; we’ve never gotten caught. We’ve never needed… this. Ever. You’ve never needed someone else.”

“It’s not that need him like I need you. I’m doing this so I can keep seeing you. So I can keep my mom off my back. I thought you would be okay with this.”

“I would have been more okay with it if you had told me instead of trying to keep it covered up. It makes me feel like I can’t trust you, this alone, coupled with the fact that he’s going to hold your hand and take you on dates. It’s too much. And I don’t think I can move past it. I’m hurt, June. Maybe irreparably.” 

“I thought you would understand,” I muttered quietly, to no response. Addy just looked around the room, looking anywhere but at me, contrary to her earlier adoration.  


“Not this,” Addy murmured darkly.

I heard the first rumbling of thunder, but it didn’t even faze me as Addy’s words sank in. “Goodbye, Adeline,” I said curtly, turning toward the door before she could get another word in, notebook discarded on the table.  
That was the last time Adeline and I fought. 

I ran home alone in the rain that night, the thunder competing with the slamming of Adeline’s wire door in my face for the last time replaying in my mind. The rain should have been cooling me off, chilling the searing heat my undulated rage had burdened me with but the summer weather kept the wind hot as it blew onto my face and carried my anger back to Adeline’s house. And that was all she had left of me, a trail of hurt. We had no trees with our initials carved into the bark nor friends to complain to about each other. There was no proof that our relationship ever existed beyond fragmented words that would never be uncovered.  


Was it worth it, giving up my first love for James? Sadly, yes.

Our first date was boring, obviously. He showed up at my doorstep with a bouquet of gas station roses, not that my mother cared. She was too preoccupied with the way he ogled me in my cerulean summer dress, a dress she had picked out for today. If I hadn't been wearing it on this date, I would have loved it. It looked nice against my sable skin and was detailed with pretty flower patterns. But James ruined it. “You look like an angel,” he told me as he thrust the bouquet in my hands and my mother cooed. We had a little time before the movie began so he took me to a diner first. He tried to take me to Papa Ben’s, but I yelped and told him I once suffered from food poisoning there, highly unladylike indeed. He talked mostly about himself, his football team, his car, maybe asked me three questions about myself, tops. When he noticed another boy from our school staring at me, he leaned forward and kissed me with cold lips that tasted like the disgusting pickle sandwich he had been eating. 

When I was with Adeline, the more time we spent with each other, the more our respective façades slipped away. On our first date, my answers to her questions were saccharine and given with a laugh, as if I were on the stage. She was shy and quiet, as if she were afraid to deviate from the bookish girl I met at school. Then on the second date, she told me a joke she’d read in the newspaper and I responded with a snort instead of a giggle. I absentmindedly mentioned football and she went on a tangent about the Tennessee Titans, hands in a flurry and her voice steadily growing louder. By the third date, I was lying on the floor of her room, pulling my hair out of its tight bun whilst she tried to tune the radio into a football match. The same was true for James and I. With every date we went on, the harder it was for me to tolerate him and the harder it was for him to pretend that he was taking me to the mini-golf course because he enjoyed my presence and not my body. On our fifth date, I spent the last of my energy I had been using as I pretended to like him to prevent myself from slapping him after he asked me when I was going to “put out”. I said I was saving myself for marriage and before I had even finished my sentence, he was blurting out an excuse and leaving me stranded at My Fair Mini. My mother didn’t mind too much that I was spending less time with James, it just meant that there was more time for me to focus on the competition. 

Three weeks after I left Adeline’s house, my mother signed me up to compete in the Dixie Darlings beauty pageant. Her fountain pen had barely finished staining the paper with her signature when she informed me that I would be performing ‘Cowboy Take Me Away’. I knew the song well, it played at many parties and weddings and on Adeline’s radio. But it never felt like anything to me. I was never able to belt out the lyrics like the other girls could. In my opinion, that is a sufficient explanation for why I didn’t win it. Wasn’t even a runner-up. To add insult to injury, ‘Cowboys and Angels’ was the song that snuck through the cracks of my crumbling façade as my mother’s shallow celebration of me and my prowess disintegrated into mere tolerance on the ride home. The more pageants I lost, the “busier” James became until one day on my way back from ballet class, I saw him kissing Sadie Cunningham, former Teen Lady of Faith runner-up turned winner of the Miss Mockingbird pageant teen division. Embarrassingly, I shed a tear over losing James but only because I felt exposed and vulnerable like I did in the car without him holding my hand in front of my mother or the church or at pageants.

The Miss Iris pageant was the last one I ever partook in. Since losing Adeline, my knees had begun to wobble as I stumbled over my confusion and the tears that had turned to diamonds in my two circles of earth had metamorphosed into rain-soaked pebbles littering the puddles. Other girls swanned in with all the knowledge and precision that I had once possessed and took the crown too as they glided back out. My mother had no intention of paying for tailored ball gowns and admission fees if the burned-out embers of my passion failed to stoke her ego. 

Still, even the greying and wrinkled birds deserved a swan song as they hobbled out of the shiny lake and into the reeds to die, and Miss Iris was my farewell to the Tennessee pageant circuit. By now, after my performance in the Dixie Darlings pageant, my mother had exposed my fondness for music and intended to strip away at every last inch of my arduous passion whilst I still had an innocent’s voice and a starlet’s body to act as its vessel. The midnight train to Georgia was waiting for me after Miss Iris ready to push me into a talent competition in Johns Creek, the first of many. 

I may have been drowning in lilac and pearls, but my mother’s existence was being smothered by a thick black coat and glassy eyes as she paraded me around the foyer. I had been a prominent figure in the pageant world for years, so the ebony pouffe that my tiara laid atop and the designer heels that carried me through a swarm of amateurs drew attention. To the naked eye, I was a prized show pony, the kind that lived on the Abernathy family farm, spritely and ethereal. In reality, I was the tired mare being led around the paddock one last time to say goodbye to the chickens and the sheep before my head met the bullet where a crown once lay. 

My mother exchanged empty pleasantries with the staffers and the other stage moms as I practiced my dance in the corner. I was alone again as I wobbled through my dance. It was the music’s fault. I heard it but I just couldn’t listen to it. A pretty piece, sure, but there was no depth to it. Not to me. It was no better on stage either, with no Adeline to perform to and share the song with. I tried to pretend that it was my song playing, one that made me feel like I was pirouetting through the clouds and reaching back for the stars. But I still fell out of each turn, my legs were crooked, and my arms were limp as I attempted to dance. But with each beat of the song that passed me by, the melody mutated into the disapproving murmurs of my mother as I stumbled across the stage, and that only frustrated me more. Long gone was my shallow smile and innocent eyes, instead they were screwed up in irritation and my lips were flattened and pressed together in preparation for the inevitable lashing I would receive. Scattered applause signalled the end of a lacklustre performance and it was only when the music stopped that I remembered the importance of propriety in pageants and I smiled once more before I left the stage. 

I barely remember the speech portion of the event; it wasn’t relevant anyway. All I did was regurgitate the same old answers I had given countless times before replete with wide eyes and a stretched smile. The final time I came onto the stage was to announce the titles and queens. It didn’t come as a surprise to me when I lost, and I don’t think it truly surprised my mother either, but she was still darkly muttering about bribery and cheating as she directed me to the dressing room for the last time and snappily told me she would be waiting in the car. 

‘Cowboys and Angels’ was oozing out of the tinny radio sitting by one of the mirrors as I entered the dressing room. Makeup was strewn about the tables, lights on and off as we returned to our regular lives. Some girls were standing in front of the mirrors, admiring their first crowns, their smiles genuine and not expected. Others were where I stood back when I had Adeline, backs rigidly straight with pride, their mothers’ hands on their back as they posed for the camera. I was neither happy nor displeased. 

One contestant that caught my eye was Dorothea Hugo, two, if not three years younger than me, sat in a corner I recognized all too well. A liminal space between victory and defeat. Dorothea did not belong with the winners; she had lost the crown and all other special titles. She did not belong with the girls tending to their running mascara and blotched cheeks either, her loss was not personal to her. Her defeat was not defeat but resignation as she awaited her mother’s disappointment, her murmurs, and her glare. Her victory, however, was that she had shed all expectations and energy needed to care about the pageant and the more she let go, the more she won. I knew that better than anyone. 

Her opal eyes flickered over to Edie Everlore’s chartreuse ones; a quiet warmth undercut by hesitance as she did so. Edie’s response was that of false courtesy as she sauntered over to Dorothea, completely innocuous as she carried herself with the gift of a queen’s grace that had won her the crown sitting atop her blonde curls. Dorothea grasped two of Edie’s fingers, desperate and wanting under the table, and her face broke out into a smile for a brief moment before her eyes flickered around the room and it fell. Almost. If she had that smile on her face when she was on stage, I have no doubt in my mind that she would have won a title, if not the crown, in the pageant.  


Flashes of rose broke through the layers of tan and rouge on Edie’s face as I watched her shyly smile at the carpet before Dorothea dropped her hand and Edie slowly traipsed back to her boyfriend with the exact same grin that had won her the pageant. Dorothea watched her leave, her expression only slightly more tinged with resignation as she did so. She briefly tilted her head as she watched Edie stiffen in the quarterback’s clumsy embrace, only for it to straighten once more as Edie turned to wink at her before leaving his arms and re-joining her fellow titleholders. 

When Dorothea smiled again, I saw myself in the flash of her pearlescent teeth sitting in Goldie’s passenger seat. I was searching for a song on the radio for Adeline and I to dance to but I couldn’t find one. And I was so close to realizing that I didn’t need one, and that I could live without one. And so were they, but there was no reason why I couldn’t help them, just to be sure that they knew what I now understood. So, the moment I had successfully snuck away to the refreshments table, I reached for my pen and an old napkin and I wrote their way out of the liminal space. 

And in that moment when I finished the first verse, I found my way out too.


End file.
